


Well Met by Moonlight

by Natterina



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 18:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3780136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, he is young and naïve and innocent: she is even younger, sneaky with a face thick with makeup to hide her vallaslin. </p><p>It is three months before Kinloch Hold will fall to the blood mages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well Met by Moonlight

The first time they meet, he is young and naïve and innocent: she is even younger, sneaky with a face thick with makeup to hide her vallaslin.

It is three months before Kinloch Hold will fall to the blood mages.

Cullen Rutherford is standing guard on the corridor outside the room that the Palace servants had set up for the visiting mages. The Circle’s best healers, Wynne and Sofiah, had been requested at the Palace in order to assess the question of Queen Anora’s fertility, and four Templars had been sent as their escorts.

The corridor is eerie and silent: the flames of the candles light up the hallway irregularly, flicking wildly each time the wind whistles by outside. Cullen is standing there in the silence, in the flickering light with the sound of two snoring mages in the room behind him, when he hears the sound of a panel sliding across from somewhere on the corridor.

It takes a moment before he sees it, but as his fingers scrape the hilt of his sword he sees a small figure emerge from the wall behind a suit of armour. Cullen starts to approach the figure as they slide the panel shut, cautious but curious. He has little doubt that she is not merely a servant –for he quickly determines they are a she upon closer inspection- and, after all, he is only a Templar and not a palace guard. Nonetheless, he approaches her with the sound of his armour clunking, and the young elf whips around at his approach.

When he spots the knapsack on her shoulders and the thick layer of makeup, he realises that a servant would _not_ be awake in the dead of night and she looks very much like a woman about to flee. Her hair is a murky brown, changing shades in the candlelight, and from what he can make out she is much more toned and muscled than any elf he has seen before.

He unsheathes his sword and holds it loosely, sure that it signals to her that whilst he will not attack outright, he is suspicious.

“Oh come now, there’s no need for that, is there?” The young elf, roughly only twenty years old, has an accent he cannot place. It belongs to no city in Ferelden, nor does it sound Orlesian or like that of a Marcher.

“Who are you, and what are you doing on this corridor at this time of the night?” His question is stern, but her reply is quick.

“Maybe I was looking for you.” She gives him an approving look that makes him blush six different shades of red, and she rubs her hand across her forehead in appreciation of her actions.

“You _will_ answer me.” He watches her hand as she watches him, notes the dark gold smudge appear on her wrist from where she rubbed her face. Cullen looks to her forehead and realises immediately that her makeup is covering some very intricate tattoos, some lines of which he can see if he looks for them. He narrows his eyes.

“You are a Dalish.”

“Yes, you caught me. Sneaking around human palaces trying to find out what is going on down south.” She gave him a blinding grin. “And I see you’re a templar. Is your sword supposed to look like that?” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as her eyes settled on his sword. He followed her gaze.

“I don’t understand…“ Cullen is cut off by a well-placed roundhouse kick to his uncovered head. It is unexpected and hard enough to disorient him, and the elf is off and around the corner before he has a chance to recover.

Cullen raises the alarm, but no trace of the young woman is found.

* * *

The second time he sees her, he is a man full of anger and hatred. It shows in the lines of his face and the tense rigidity of his shoulders as he walks.

Cullen Rutherford is a man who has forgotten nothing, who is trained to see suspicious behaviour and is far more paranoid than any man has a right to be. His distrust underlines every interaction, be they mage or not. He is a man who no longer accepts flaunting of the rules.

It is nine weeks before he will be forced to side against the first and only person he had come to trust since Kinloch Hold. It is nine weeks before the mage Anders will destroy the Chantry.

The atmosphere in the city is suffocating in all levels: Cullen keeps an eye on every new addition to the city, be they dwarf or elf or qunari or human. No new face arrives in Kirkwall without Knight Captain Cullen knowing about it.

So when the templars report an elven merchant appearing in the alienage with a strange accent and no licence, Cullen investigates.

He knows she sees him first, for when he spots her stall she is standing with her arms crossed and a cocky smile on her face.

“Oh I remember your pretty face. Fancy meeting you here.” Her smile is irritating in its superiority. It reeks of ‘I know something you don’t know’, and nothing agitates Cullen more.

“Do you have a license to be selling here?”

“Isn’t it the city guards’ job to investigate that?”

“Answer me.” Something in his tone makes her cock her head to the side in surprise, and some of her short hair falls into her face.

“Ooh something has changed you, Ser Templar. I don’t have a license, but I promise you I’ll be gone on the morrow.” She gives him a wink and looks down to her table, where he spots a few Dalish wares. Nothing valuable, of course.

“Why are you not trying to hide your identity this time?” He admits to his own curiosity by asking the question, but he is both curious and highly suspicious. What were the odds that he would see the woman who _attacked_ him here in Kirkwall?  

The elf shrugs. He notices her tattoos, dark lines that are etched on her face in a pattern that reminds him of the branches of a tree. If it had not been for her opening words, he would not have recognised her. Her tattoos are bold and vividly clear, making her appear a completely different woman.

“I was going to, at first. But I’m not the only one here with vallaslin, and that pretty little thing who lives on the end of the street is giving me all the information I need seeing as she’s a Dalish too. She thinks I was kicked out of my clan like she was.” A flash of sorrow crosses her features, but it is gone as soon as Cullen notices it.

He realises this elf is incredibly dangerous. Her cocky personality had seemed patchy and rigid when he first met her several years ago, but here he recognises that she wears it like a second skin. This Dalish elf is an actress able to assimilate to any scenario, and Cullen suspects he is right in thinking that she regularly ventures into human cities as a spy.

But why?

When he asks her this, she gives him an uneasy shrug.

“We lost contact with the clan north of Kirkwall. I got there and found carnage, and entered the city to figure out what happened. Fortunately it wasn’t because of the templars.” Her words are tight despite her grin; her mask is slipping under his questions. This is obviously a subject that pains her.

“And why are you telling me this?” Cullen’s voice is hard: he feels no pity for this woman, who belongs to a clan that is probably harbouring mages. He has half a mind to send templars after her when she leaves. Almost as if reading his mind, she answers with a laugh.

“Because what are you going to do about it? Your boss might be willing to send templars after my clan but the Dalish have enough of a reputation now that I don’t think you are willing to risk a war with the Dalish alongside the tension with mages.”

Cullen finds he has a hundred things he wants to reply with, but none of them can come to mind. The elf gives him a flirtatious smile that is all bravado with no meaning behind it, and ushers for him to leave her stall.

Angry, frustrated, and maddeningly curious, Cullen leaves her alone with the intention of having two templars on the lookout for her. They have orders to pursue if she goes anywhere.

Come morning she has disappeared, and Cullen has half a mind to fire the two he left monitoring her.

* * *

Cullen doesn’t catch a good look at the prisoner when Cassandra is hauling her unconscious body into the prison cells at Haven. Covered in soot and demon blood, Cullen doesn’t care to look either.

It is at the rift, years since their last encounter, when Cullen realises who she is. The soldiers are clapping, Leliana and Cassandra look relieved and panicked, and the dark haired elf is unconscious on the floor with the green glow on her hand fading ever so slightly.

Without thinking, he speaks.

“She is a spy!”

Cassandra sets her eyes on him, steely and tired, and had Cullen been the young templar he was when he first met the elf, he might have shrunk away.

“Do explain, Commander.”

“I have met her twice before. She is Dalish…” Cullen breaks off as he looks at her, unconscious but alive and soon to be taken back to Haven. Her hair is much longer than before, pulled back into a braid that curls on the ground beside her. Her tattoos have not faded, and she does not look much older than she was the last time he saw her.

Cassandra nearly loses her patience.

"What gave that away, Cullen?” It is sarcastic and harsh, indicating that Cassandra is not annoyed with him: she is merely impatient and unwilling to put up with silly statements. Cullen straightens.

“We will talk about this once we return to Haven, Cassandra.”

* * *

When they do return, he explains it all to Cassandra and she weighs it very carefully in her mind. However, Cullen knows she now believes the prisoner is innocent, and even _he_ knows that with the mark on her hand the prisoner is highly _valuable_. Whether or not she was spying on the conclave, none of it matters now that the breach has opened.

After introductions have been made –brief, of course- Cullen does not expect her to approach him. It is with surprise then that he notices her making her way towards him mere hours after she had awakened.

“So… it’s Ser Cullen now, is it?” Her words are soft, lacking the self-assured edge that he remembers so well. Cullen looks at her, _really_ looks at her for the first time.

The Herald is wearing the clothes that Cassandra had ordered her to be dressed in, and the long sleeves hide the strong physique he had seen on the mountain. Her braided hair is indeed long, reaching to just below her breast as it lays over one shoulder. Her hair is still a murky brown and her eyes, he notices, match it perfectly: with an appearance so like that of other elves, he is not surprised she was able to slip into society regularly.

She may look unassuming, but he knows she can act well and has a good kick to supplement it. Cullen imagines her hand to hand skills are immense.

“Indeed it is, my lady. But I am at a loss as to your own name.” His words are gravelly: Cullen still cannot tone down that suspicion that rises with each new person he meets. The Herald may not be a mage, but he can still remember the pain of the bruise that had blossomed on his face the last time he got too close to her.

She gives a laugh.

“My name is Ellana Lavellan, of Clan Lavellan. I am not a spy.” She gives him a sly grin when he gives a nervous laugh; he had not been quiet when he was trying to convince Cassandra not to trust the elf.

Lavellan continues. “My clan has always been interested in human affairs, Ser Cullen. When the armies started to gather in the south of Ferelden over a decade ago, I was sent to discover if it would be a threat to my own clan who had just arrived in Ferelden. When we met in Kirkwall, I promise you that I was telling you the truth when I said that I was investigating the death of nearly a whole clan just outside of Kirkwall. Other than that, the only times I enter a city in disguise is when I am trying to ascertain if the local lord has plans to slaughter my clan for staying too long. Not that I _minded_ bumping into you.”

Lavellan’s smile is easy, and for the first time Cullen detects that she is truly telling him the truth. She seems awfully sincere, even if she cannot resist the flirtatious line at the end. Cullen relents, feeling sick as he goes against everything his instincts are telling him not to do.

He holds out his hand.

“How about we start anew, my lady Herald?” Lavellan takes his hand with a smile, giving it a firm shake.

“I agree, Ser Cullen.”

* * *

When he is kissing her on the battlements of Skyhold months later, he finds it laughable that he had ever been so suspicious of a woman he loves so deeply.


End file.
